


mind and body

by starsshinedarkly77



Series: mind and body [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, But no one dies, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Duck has a cat, Fire Magic, Gen, Honestly i dont even know how to properly warn for this but its not so graphic, Hurt/Comfort, Narf Blaster, Near Death Experiences, Possession, Shit Hits The Fan, Team Bonding, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-27 00:43:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18293414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsshinedarkly77/pseuds/starsshinedarkly77
Summary: He’s in the process of unzipping his jacket as he steps into the kitchen and flicks on the light switch, his thoughts wandering idly to the idea of having a mug of hot, strong tea before he turns in for the night, and it takes him a moment to realize that someone is standing in his kitchen.Someone is standing in his kitchen.(Or, the Duck possession fic that nobody asked for, but I wrote anyway)





	mind and body

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I left Indrid alone long enough to be able to do something completely harrowing and terrible to Duck, so. You're welcome, I guess?

Kepler, West Virginia is bright and quiet tonight.

It’s a departure from the usual, Duck thinks, using a booted foot to propel his skateboard further down the sidewalk, increasing the frequency of the _clack-clack-clack_ that echoes through the street every time he rolls over a gap. Usually, Kepler is _dark_ and quiet at night, but tonight the moon is fat and full and low in the sky, like a brilliant white eye looming just a little too close for comfort.

Duck dislikes the feeling of being watched; it always makes him feel like he’s disappointing somebody.

He’s on his way home, and it’s hard to say if he’s glad about it or not. He and the rest of the Pine Guard, along with Mama and Barclay and, more often than not as of late, Dani and Jake, have been working long into the night the past few days trying to get out ahead of the “Monster of the Week,” as Ned and Aubrey have taken to calling the Abominations, despite the fact that they appear on a monthly schedule rather than a weekly one, thank _God._ The newest Abomination has been starkly and frighteningly elusive, and the sheer lack of information has had them all desperately scrambling, digging through newspaper clippings and old tomes that Duck doesn’t even wanna _know_ the origin of until they’re all falling asleep slumped over each other on the couch in Mama’s office.

Tonight, despite her own visible stress and urgency, Mama had put her foot down and insisted they get some rest. They’d all protested - or, at least, _Aubrey_ had protested, loudly, while Duck backed her up, reluctantly, and more out of politeness than any real urge to stay up any later, while Ned blinked sleepily at them all from the spot on the rug he’d been fast asleep and snoring on mere seconds previously. Mama had eventually emerged victorious when Aubrey yawned in the middle of insisting she wasn’t tired, and the Pine Guard had disbanded for the night.

Mama had offered to put both he and Ned up at the lodge, and Ned had accepted immediately with bleary-eyed gratitude, but Duck, despite his own bone-deep fatigue, had waved her off, citing his sorely neglected cat as the reason. In reality, Soup probably would have been fine on her own for another night (Leo Tarkesian had been over to feed her late yesterday), but Duck’s natural and deep-seated predilection for solitude had won out over the prospect of immediately collapsing onto the nearest horizontal surface and conking out for the next several hours. It wasn’t that he _disliked_ being around other people, but he was used to keeping to himself and the amount of time he’d spent in close proximity with people (and Sylvans) over the past week had left him feeling considerably drained. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t push through for the sake of finding out what the _fuck_ was out there this month and how they were gonna stop it, but he’d figured that he should take advantage of the opportunity to have a few hours to himself before their monster hunt was quite so imminent.

The walk through the woods around Amnesty Lodge and the skateboard ride down the path and through town had done quite a bit in terms of clearing Duck’s head of the clutter that tended to accumulate around the edges of his mind when he found himself having to be far more extroverted (more on, more put together, more _controlled)_ than was his preference. They were little, creeping things, sometimes easy to sweep away but sometimes harder, when they piled up and hung on and wiggled themselves into cracks - questions of _what are you doing here, who do you think you are, why do you think you belong, who do you think you’re really_ ** _helping,_** _Duck Newton?_ \- questions he swears he can see gleaming in the corners of eyes that glance his direction - in Ned’s, in Aubrey’s, in Mama’s. It’s far easier out here, under the gleaming moon and with the wind whipping sharp and cool across his face and past his ears, to assure himself that the questions, the looks, the doubts, are mere inventions of his own mind, the insidious by-products of bad brain chemistry and decades of denial and cowardice.

Aubrey and Ned, after all, believe in him. It’s _Duck_ that doesn’t believe in himself.

He tries to shake the thought away, to not let it land heavy and thick and pulsing in the pit of his stomach where all it’s going to do is fester and rot and come bursting back open right when he doesn’t want it to. He’s not totally sure he succeeds, but he can deflect the sharpest edge of it, at least, and hold on to the peace and contentment he felt - he always feels - making his way home through the quiet streets of Kepler.

Too soon but not soon enough (he really _is_ exhausted), he’s rolling up outside of his apartment building, stepping off his skateboard and not quite nailing the landing- _if you fuck up a skateboard dismount and there’s no one around to see it, did you still fuck up? -_ and fumbling his keys out of his back pocket. He bounds up the stairs as quietly as he can, realizing at he crests the top of the flight that the ability to _bound up stairs_ as a man in his forties was another one of those Chosen things he’d taken for granted, and he does his best not to pant pathetically as he unlocks the door to his apartment and goes in.

It’s dark as pitch inside until he’s able to prop his skateboard up against the wall in the entryway and pull the chain of the lamp on the end table closest to the door, filling the living room with pleasant, yellowy-orange light. Soup blinks at him from the back of the sofa and offers him an indifferent _mrow_ in greeting _._ Maybe Duck should be offended by the lukewarm reception, but he’s actually glad that Soup doesn’t seem to miss him too much while he’s gone, that she can look after herself; it certainly makes him feel less guilty.

He gives her rubbery, hairless head a brief scratch as he passes by on his way into the kitchen, and she rewards him with a rusty purr before she leaps down off of the sofa and disappears into the shadows at the end of the hallway.

He’s in the process of unzipping his jacket as he steps into the kitchen and flicks on the light switch, his thoughts wandering idly to the idea of having a mug of hot, strong tea before he turns in for the night, and it takes him a moment to realize that someone is standing in his kitchen.

_Someone is standing in his kitchen._

Duck reels back like he’s been struck, his heart leaping violently up into his throat, his hand flying toward where Beacon is tightly coiled around his waist. No sooner do his fingers brush the cold metal of the sword’s hilt than Duck realizes that he _recognizes_ the figure in front of him, the short, stout build and the thick, greying hair that belong to Leo Tarkesian.

Duck feels like he could pass out in relief. Or maybe from residual fear. Either way.

“ _Christ,_ Leo,” he breathes, his hand slipping off of Beacon’s hilt. “Warn a guy next time, will ya? You scared the hell out of me. What are you doin’ here, man?”

Leo doesn’t answer. In fact, he doesn’t acknowledge Duck at all. He’s facing away from Duck, towards the back wall of the kitchen and the slightly rickety two-person table that Duck hasn’t taken his meals at in years. Upon closer inspection, Leo appears to be swaying ever so slightly on his feet. Back and forth. Back and forth.

The center of Duck’s palms start to prickle.

“Leo…?” he says slowly, taking a slow step forward into the kitchen. _If this is some kind of crazy training exercise_ , he thinks, _I’m going to kick Leo’s ass._

His boots squeak on the linoleum as he takes another step, and Leo, with deliberate and inhuman slowness, turns his head towards Duck.

His eyes are black.

Inky black, like two pools of tar set in his eye sockets, absent of pupil and iris, and leaking black fluid down his face, onto his chin, onto the floor. Duck watches dumbly as the thick drops splatter against his linoleum floors and wonders, wildly, absurdly, if that’s going to stain.

In the next instant, Leo - or whatever _thing_ is wearing his face - pounces at him.

He doesn’t even have time to reach for Beacon before he’s on the ground, the back of his skull throbbing from striking against the edge of the countertop on the way down, with Leo - with the _thing -_ over him, straddling him, staring down at him with those horrible black eyes, leaking black fluid that falls like a demented rain onto Duck’s uniform shirt, onto his face. With panic flooding him he strikes out at the thing, thrashing wildly, but he’s not _strong_ enough, completely prone and helpless as _it_ leans closer and closer, until all he can see is those black pools, deep and dark and bottomless, and he falls, and he _falls_ and -

 

And -

 

And -

 

He’s floating, suspended in cool, black darkness.

There is no sound, no light, no sensation. Just empty space and himself. And he floats.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been floating. There is no time here either, and it doesn’t concern him in the least.

It’s peaceful here. Still and quiet. So he floats.

And floats.

And waits.

Waits.

_Waits?_

Confused, Duck opens his eyes - _does he have eyes? What are eyes? What are eyes for? -_ and squints - _squints? What is squinting? -_ into the abyss around him, still impenetrably and unyieldingly dark.

Is he waiting? He can’t be waiting. Waiting requires the passage of time, and there is no time here.

Here.

What is _here? Where_ is here?

Confused, Duck opens his eyes - _does he have eyes? Yes, he has eyes. Didn’t he just open his eyes? -_ and squints - _yes, yes, he knows this, he’s done this before -_ into the abyss around him. It is still impenetrably and unyieldingly dark.

Dark and silent, but peaceful.

 _Peaceful,_ isn’t it?

Isn’t it?

_Isn’t it?_

He doesn’t like the dark. _No, that’s not right_ \- he doesn’t mind the dark; he’s a grown man with enough nights spent roaming Monongahela National Forest - _yes, yes, he knows this, the wind whipping through the pines, his boots crunching against the forest floor -_ under his belt to find more comfort and safety in the dark than fear and uncertainty.

Comfort. Safety. Yes, it’s safe here.

Here.

_Where is here?_

Frustrated, Duck pinches his eyes shut tighter. He doesn’t want to get up yet, even though it must be time for school. He’s surprised Janie isn’t already in his room, giggling as she pounces onto the bed to wake him up, waiting for him to feign anger and roar like a grizzly bear and scoop her up into his arms.

He needs to wake up. It’s important, for some reason.

_He needs to wake up._

Slowly, slowly, he pushes himself towards consciousness, trying to emerge from the thick, muffled cocoon of sleep.

Sleep?

…He doesn’t remember going to sleep.

The darkness, rather than comforting, suddenly seems oppressive, heavy, like he’s gotten tangled up in a drape, and he thrashes, trying to find his way out of it. His heartbeat quickens; he gasps for air.

But, of course, he doesn’t. There is no air here.

He is drowning in the black, drowning, _drowning,_ and he’s sinking down and down and down to the bottom while his lungs burn and crush inside his chest and he’s dying, oh _God,_ he’s _dying,_ like in the vision he had before they fought the water elemental, only now there’s not even the faintest hint of light glowing far above him, giving him hope. Just more cold, empty, devastating black.

He needs to wake up. _He needs to wake up._

He still doesn’t remember when he went to sleep.

He needs to wake up. He needs to get Janie her breakfast, and help her tie her shoes, because Mom doesn’t have time before she leaves for work, and they can’t miss the bus again. He needs to wake up.

And then there is a voice, filling the silence and darkness with warm, melodic sound.

 _Go back to sleep, Duck,_ his mother says. _It’s alright. Get some rest. I’ll take care of everything. Just go back to sleep._

He rolls back over, towards the darkness, reaching out for it so as not to lose his grip on unconsciousness. His mother will take care of everything. It’s alright. Mom said to go back to sleep.

 _Go back to sleep, Duck,_ his mother said.

Duck.

His mother never calls him Duck.

Duck opens his eyes- _he’s done this before, he’s done this before, why can’t he wake up, why can’t he -_ into the black and cold and silence. He isn’t asleep.

His mother never calls him Duck.

His mother has been dead for over ten years.

He is back underwater, and his lungs are screaming for air, and maybe _he_ is screaming, mouth open, the darkness pouring back into him from out of Leo’s eyes - _Leo’s eyes, oh God, oh God -_ but instead of sinking to the bottom he is rising, pushing towards the surface, too fast, too _fast,_ and his ears pop from the pressure, and his ribs crumple inwards, and -

He surfaces.

 

The first thing he sees is the barrel of Ned’s Narf Blaster.

Duck blinks.

Or, at least, he _tries_ to blink; whatever pathway that’s responsible for taking impulses from his brain to his body must be fucked up somewhere along the line, because his eyes remain steadfastly open. He doesn’t even feel an eyelid twitch in response.

In the next fraction of a fraction of a second, the scene around him comes rushing into perfect, devastating clarity.

He is standing in the woods, in Monongahela National Forest, and the wind is whipping manically through the pine boughs overhead, setting the vibrant white shafts of moonlight shining through the branches in motion in a feverish, desperate dance against the forest floor. 

Across from him stands Ned, the Narf Blaster quivering slightly in his grasp as he aims it at Duck. His expression is stricken and wavering, uncertainty and raw terror pouring off of him in thick, heavy sheets as the barrel of the Blaster shakes indecisively in the air between them.

In Duck’s arms is Aubrey.

She’s pressed against his chest, facing away from him, towards Ned, so he can’t see her face, and despite the heat of her skin she is trembling lightly in his grasp; one of his arms is wrapped around her waist.

In his opposite hand, he holds Beacon, the sharp of the blade pressed to Aubrey’s throat.

The blood in his body turns icy cold with fear, and every instinct he possesses is telling him to fling Aubrey away from him, to throw Beacon to the ground, to get her _safe,_ but not a single part of his body obeys his desperate commands.

It isn’t like having an out of body experience, which is the weird thing. He’s _in_ his body, watching everything from behind his own eyes, but he’s little more than a passive bystander, a prisoner to his own immobile limbs and leaden tongue.

Something _else_ is in here with him, and whatever _it_ is is the one calling the shots around here.

Duck pushes back, hard, and black comes rushing to the edges of his vision, threatening to push him back under, into that same dark and empty place from before, but he holds fast, clings to whatever is _real;_ the wind striking against his face, the warmth and weight of Aubrey’s limbs against his own. He has to stay here, to stop this, to do _something._

He locks eyes with Ned, tries to put his lips and tongue in motion, to speak, to say _anything._ Because Ned is wavering, and Duck needs him not to waver; because Ned has the right idea. If he shoots Duck, he shoots the _thing,_ as well.

When Duck dies, he’ll take it with him.

When Duck dies.

Maybe it should scare him more, that. He’s always been terrified of dying; always knew, from the time he was very young and Minerva first appeared to him, that accepting his role, accepting that he was _Chosen_ , was little more than a glorified death sentence. He knew, and he ran, and he turned his back on it, because all he ever wanted to be was a simple man who led a simple life in a simple town full of other simple people.

But here he stands, and Aubrey has a blade against her throat, and nothing about this is simple.

Because _fuck him_ if he’s gonna let this girl die.

The _thing_ in him can feel him fighting, and responds by digging Beacon deeper into Aubrey’s neck. He hears her gasp, the sound scarcely a whisper underneath the howling wind, and a ribbon of red runs down Beacon’s blade.

 _Don’t fight this, Duck,_ his mother’s voice says. _Go back to sleep._

He can’t go back to sleep.

He’s wide awake.

He pushes, trying to rise, trying to recapture that feeling of rushing towards the surface, and infuses it with every memory he has; of his mother, of Janie, of Juno and Leo and Ned and Aubrey and Soup and Minerva and the wind in the pines and he _pushes,_ and the _thing_ staggers, slips, Duck’s limbs loosening and the feeling rushing back to his numb lips.

It won’t last. The dark feeling is already encroaching again, coiling back around his mind like a boa constrictor. But it’s enough.

“Ned,” Duck strains, feeling like he’s trying to speak through a crushed windpipe, a broken jaw, a split tongue. Aubrey starts in his grasp, and Ned’s agonized eyes meet Duck’s. “It’s…okay…”

Ned seems incapable of speech, his eyes darting from Aubrey to Duck to Aubrey again. He can’t fire on Duck without catching Aubrey in the crossfire. He’s got to let go of her, to give Ned a chance to do what he needs to. But he can’t let go on his own.

“Aubrey,” (his voice is barely more than a whisper, but she hears him, she has to hear, she has to _understand_ ), “Light…it…up.”

That has to be enough. He’s done all that he can do.

The creature inside him rears back up at full strength, sending his jaws camping shut so fast he bites his tongue, the taste of iron flooding his mouth, and he feels the hand holding Beacon seize on the the hilt, start to swing -

And Aubrey catches on fire.

Orange and red and yellow erupt in Duck’s vision as Aubrey lights up, sending flames dancing across her own skin, leaving her completely unscathed but burning Duck, _burning,_ and the _thing_ recoils, releases her, distracted by the pain. Duck uses that moment of distraction to push Aubrey as hard and far as he dares, sending her sprawling across the forest floor, still burning like a miniature sun.

Several things happen at once, then.

Aubrey lands and whips her head back around towards Duck, terror in her eyes and tear stains on her cheeks -

The _thing_ grips Beacon and in a long, fluid motion, whips the blade around towards Duck’s own throat, and Duck sees the path it will take to coil around his neck, to decapitate him -

Ned fires the Narf Blaster three times, and three blazing white stars come flying at Duck -

And Duck shuts his eyes. Prays that Ned’s aim is true, that the blasts will strike him before the sword does, that Aubrey doesn’t watch.

 _I’m sorry,_ he thinks, bizarrely. _I’m sorry, Minerva. I’m sorry, Janie. I’m sorry, Aubrey and Ned and Mama and Leo and Kepler and Sylvain and Soup and -_

The blasts strike him, one after another after another, squarely in the chest, and it feels like being run through with a burning poker; they hit him and they keep _going, through_ him, and he collapses to his knees, gasping, dropping Beacon, his hands flying towards his chest, seeking out the gaping holes in his flesh -

And finding nothing.

Nothing but three burn marks in his uniform shirt, and unscathed skin peeking through.

The pain evaporates like it never existed, and with its disappearance Duck realizes he can _move,_ he can _think,_ and he whirls around in time to see the white figure launched backwards out of his body, thrashing in the air, three oozing black punctures through its chest, screeching inhumanely as it grows brighter and brighter and brighter until it bursts apart and dissolves.

Then everything is quiet.

Well. Almost everything. Duck’s breath is coming from him in panicked, heavy wheezes, and Aubrey is still cracking like a campfire, and the sounds of the forest are creeping back in as if they’ve been on mute. He can hear the wind in the pines again.

Duck turns around slowly, still on his knees, too afraid to stand up and find that he doesn’t have the strength to be on his feet, or that he really _did_ die, and everything that’s happened after het got shot has been something he’s dreamt up in the afterlife. Ned slowly lowers the Narf blaster and lets out a breath like he hasn’t exhaled in an hour, reaches shakily to wipe the sweat off of his brow. Aubrey stays lying where she landed, sparks still flying up from her skin, staring at Duck like she’s just seen him come back from the dead.

In a way, she has.

For a long, long moment, the three of them stand - and lie, and kneel - and breathe. Just breathe.

Then Duck speaks.

“Young lady,” he says, still panting and out of breath. “You best put that fire out before you light up the whole damn forest.”

Aubrey chokes out a noise that’s half laugh, half sob, and launches herself at Duck, extinguishing herself as she goes. Her arms twine around his neck and the weight of her body strikes against him all at once, almost knocking him backwards, but he holds fast, catches her, and hugs her just as fiercely back, even as the sting in his arms and chest reminds him that she did _just_ burn the absolute hell out of him. He doesn’t care.

After a moment, she begins to sob into his shoulder, and Ned lets the Narf Blaster drop to the first floor, staggering over to them and landing on his knees behind Aubrey. Duck sees him hesitate, already halfway in motion, but he keeps going, wraps his arms around Aubrey and rests his hands on Duck’s shoulders, and in the instant all their bodies meet they cease to be three people and become one being, one entity, fear and pain and relief made solid and alive, pulsing like a beating heart.

Then the moment passes, and they’re just three weirdos hugging on the forest floor. But for now, Duck’s fine with that too.

For now, that’s much more than fine. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr at starsshinedarkly77!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [PODFIC: mind and body](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18567751) by [femvimes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/femvimes/pseuds/femvimes)




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